What Our Critics Say

Editors banned! - Twenty eight years on and still going strong...

"It is highly opinionated: the only guide that offers parents a genuine flavour of what a school is like." The Daily Telegraph.

The Good Schools Guide was founded in 1985 by Amanda Atha and Sarah Drummond, two parents in search of schools for their children. With the help of others (notably Patrea More Nisbett) they visited hundreds of schools and wrote up their experiences in the direct and independent style that still characterises The Guide.

The Good Schools Guide 18th edition is priced at £39.95 +p&p.

The first edition sold out within a week...

Impartial, independent, indispensable

Greatly offended, the schools fought back and banned the editors from their premises, only to find that they were written up anyway on the basis of the reports and opinions of their parents and neighbours. Most now tolerate us, more or less.

Twenty eight years later there are more than fifty of us, spread throughout the UK. Most are parents with young children, a few are former heads and senior teachers.

We remain true to the founding principles of The Guide:

No school can pay to be in The Guide - no school can demand to be removed.

to be independent in our judgements of schools;
to view schools from a parent's point of view, and to choose schools for The Guide on the basis of what parents say about them;
to define good schools as schools that are good for the children and parents that they serve, and not to be too influenced by academic results alone.
If a school is not included in The Guide this does not necessarily mean it is not a good school - our selection is a personal one.